I am half Faroese & 1st generation. My mom was born and raised on Nolsoy. I am not sure at this time what I will do with this but hopefully I can bring more attention to the Faroe Islands & make more people aware of one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Like I said I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog. I have never done such a thing. But I guess one of the first things I need to do is introduce myself.

My name is Allen but many of my family call me Ogie so that is where I got the nickname on this blog.

I was born in England to two loving parents. My dad was an American born in Pennsylvania. He served in the US Air Force for 24 years. He first enlisted during WW2 when it was called the Army Air Corps. But most of this blog will be about my mother’s side. She was born and raised on a small island in the Faroe Islands called Nolsoy. (Now a side note: at times I will turn my font to allow Faroese characters but most of the time I will stick with English just because I am lazy and it is easier to stay with what I know. See Nolsoy in Faroese is spelt Nólsoy) She was one of eight children. My Omma (grandmother) was one of 23 and my Abbi (grandfather) I believe was one of 8-10. (Not quite sure on him.) So as you can image I have a lot of family in Faroe Islands.

I will in the future give you links to the Faroe Islands if you are interested to find out more. But for right now one of the best ways to find out is to google Faroe Islands and you will find out a lot about the Faroe Islands.

So now you are probably asking how a man from Pennsylvania and a woman from the Faroe Islands ever met each other. Well my mom left Nolsoy at 18 to move to Denmark where a couple of her older sisters had already moved to. (Note: Faroe Islands is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark) She always told us kids (I have a brother and sister) that she left Nolsoy so she didn’t end up marrying a cousin. Anyway she ended up with a job at a hotel in Copenhagen. Now my dad ended up stationed in Copenhagen where he was training some of the Saudi Arabian air force on some missile stuff. And he just happened to be staying that the same hotel my mom was working. I guess it was one of those love at first site things because it wasn’t long until he asked her to marry him. They had a great marriage and were married for 34 years up until my dad’s death in 1990.

Now where I come in is their first place my dad was stationed after their marriage was Burtonwood, England. I guess it was between Liverpool and Manchester. She was still a Faroese/Danish citizen so for what ever reason at least at that time after I was born I was considered an immigrant. Up until I was 18 I could have chosen to have Faroese/Danish citizenship, English citizenship or US citizenship. And as you can tell I chose US. My mom at the time decided to have me baptized on Nolsoy. The image of the church above is the church I was baptized in. A tradition in the Faroe Islands is to have multiple godparents. I had 4 godfathers and 3 godmothers. I am not sure if that is still the tradition today. I guess I will have to ask one of my cousin’s, his granddaughter is being baptized in November. Anyway that was the first time I visited the Faroe Islands.

If you are not aware of being brought up an Air Force brat you move a lot. By the time my dad retired I had been in 13 different countries by the age of 13. Throughout my childhood my mother would bring us back to the Faroe Islands to visit. One of the longest times was when I was 4-5 years old. (I turn 5 while we were there.) At that time I learnt to speak Faroese. I even started school here not being able to speak English. Unfortunately my mother felt it would hurt my schooling so she never kept it up and today I can only speak a little bit. It is one of my goals to do before I die is to be able to speak Faroese again but it is difficult to do long distance. So like I said I have been their several times but the last time was over 30 years when I was 17 years old. I spent 6 months there by myself. It was one of the best times in my life. I always said I would go back but for what ever reason I have not made it back YET. So another goal is to at least make it back to the Faroe Islands and Denmark one more time.

I have been fortunate that many Aunts, Uncles and cousins have been able to visit us. So we have been able to stay connected. One of my favorite cousins just visited this last September. But since my mother past away in 1995 it has been difficult to keep in touch with everyone. Since I don’t speak Faroese and some of my family don’t speak English it is hard to communicate with them. The internet has been a great help in being able to keep in touch. I have many IM programs and use Skype to stay connected.

Anyway I think this is a lot for my first posting I will try and keep in touch. If there are any other Faroese Americans out there I welcome you your input. I know there are a few of us out there.